Easton Area to resume pact talks with bus drivers

School district also will try again for secretaries contract.

February 27, 2006|By Madeleine Mathias Of The Morning Call

Negotiations for the bus drivers union in the Easton Area School District will resume Tuesday, while similar talks should be scheduled within seven to 10 days for the secretaries union, according to school administrators.

The bus drivers, members of Teamsters Local 773, have been working under a previous four-year contract which expired June 30, 2005, while the secretaries union, the Educational Office Professionals of AFSCME District Council 33, Local 1893, has been unable to resolve bargaining issues since its contract expired on June 30, 2004.

With no discussion at Thursday's special board meeting, the school directors rejected, by a 5-3 vote, the latest proposals for a secretaries contract.

School Superintendent Dennis Riker said after the district and the secretaries rejected a fact-finder's report in November, it was back to the bargaining table in January. At that point, a mediator was recommended and his report was presented in the past few weeks to the secretaries and then to the school board on Thursday.

Riker said the mediator's report was rejected on many of the same issues that were disclosed in the rejected fact-finder's report.

While the mediator's report can't be made public because of continuing negotiating sessions, Riker said the fact-finder's report is public information.

In that report, the fact-finder noted that the 45 full-time secretaries earned $22,026 to $37,937 and five part-time secretaries made $9.86 an hour.

Riker said there has been some agreement on the issues, but he could not disclose them because that could be considered unfair labor practices.

Union representatives could not be reached for comment Friday.

Bus drivers union steward Helen Jones said the union had expected a negotiating session on Wednesday, but it was canceled by the district. Joseph Kish, assistant to the superintendent, said the board had received a union proposal from a negotiating session earlier this month. However Kish, a member of the negotiating team, was unable to present the proposal at an executive session -- which prompted the session's cancellation -- because of the many items slated for Thursday's school board agenda.

Contract negotiations are one of the few items school boards can discuss in executive session, but a vote on them must be made in public.

Kish said he did notify the union representatives on the negotiating team about the meeting cancellation.

The about 85 bus drivers and the school board also rejected a fact-finder's report in January. That report noted the district offered 3 percent annual increases in a five-year pact, while the union wanted 4.5 percent wage increases.

Kish said many of the issues in that report remain unresolved. That report said issues in contention included holidays, sick days, longevity pay and health benefits.

Kish said that mediator Robert Millett will participate in Tuesday's meeting.